Omaha hold 'em (or Omaha holdem or simply Omaha) is a community card poker game similar to Texas hold 'em, where each player is dealt four cards and must make his best hand using exactly two of them, plus exactly three of the five community cards. The exact origin of the game is unknown, but casino executive Robert Turner first brought Omaha into a casino setting when he introduced the game to Bill Boyd who offered it as a game at the Las Vegas Golden Nugget Casino (calling it "Nugget Hold'em".)[1]
Omaha hold 'em is the "O" game featured in H.O.R.S.E.
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In North American casinos, the term "Omaha" can refer to several poker games. The original game is also commonly known as "Omaha High". A high-low split version called "Omaha Hi-Lo", or sometimes "Omaha eight-or-better" or "Omaha/8", is also played.
In Europe, "Omaha" still typically refers to the high version of the game, usually played pot-limit. Pot-limit Omaha is often abbreviated as "PLO." Pot-limit and no-limit Omaha eight-or-better can be found in some casinos and online, though no-limit is rarer.[2]
It is often said that Omaha is a game of "the nuts", i.e. the best possible high or low hand, because it frequently takes "the nuts" to win a showdown. It is also a game where between the cards in his hand and the community cards a player may have drawing possibilities to multiple different types of holdings. For example, a player may have both a draw to a flush and a full house using different combinations of cards. At times, even seasoned players may need additional time to figure what draws are possible for their hand.
The basic differences between Omaha and Texas hold 'em are these: first, each player is dealt four cards to his private hand instead of two. The betting rounds and layout of community cards are identical. At showdown, each player's hand is the best five-card hand he can make from exactly three of the five cards on the board, plus exactly two of his own cards. Unlike Texas hold 'em, a player cannot play four or five of the cards on the board with fewer than two of his own, nor can a player use three or four hole cards to disguise a strong hand.
Some specific things to notice about Omaha hands are:
In high-low split, each player makes a separate five-card high hand and five-card ace-to-five low hand (eight-high or lower to qualify), and the pot is split between the high and low (which may be the same player). To qualify for low, a player must be able to play an 8-7-6-5-4 or lower (this is why it is called "eight-or-better", or simply "Omaha/8"). A few casinos play with a 9-low qualifier instead, but this is rare. Each player can play any two of his four hole cards to make his high hand, and any two of his four hole cards to make his low hand. If there is no qualifying low hand, the high hand wins (scoops) the whole pot. This game is usually played in the fixed limit version, although pot limit Omaha/8 is becoming more popular. A few low-stakes online tournaments feature no limit Omaha/8.
The brief explanation above belies the complexity of the game, so a number of examples will be useful here to clarify it. The table below shows a five-card board of community cards at the end of play, and then lists for each player the initial private four-card hand dealt to him or her, and the best five-card high hand and low hand each player can play on showdown:
| Board: 2♠ 5♣ 10♥ 7♦ 8♣ | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Hand | High | Low |
| Dan | A♠ 4♠ 5♥ K♣ | 5♥ 5♣ A♠ 10♥ 8♣ | 7♦ 5♣ 4♠ 2♠ A♠ |
| Bryan | A♥ 3♥ 10♠ 10♣ | 10♠ 10♣ 10♥ 8♣ 7♦ | 7♦ 5♣ 3♥ 2♠ A♥ |
| Chris | 7♣ 9♣ J♠ Q♠ | J♠ 10♥ 9♣ 8♣ 7♦ |
|
| Derek | 4♥ 6♥ K♠ K♦ | 8♣ 7♦ 6♥ 5♣ 4♥ | 7♦ 6♥ 5♣ 4♥ 2♠ |
| Melodee | A♦ 3♦ 6♦ 9♥ | 10♥ 9♥ 8♣ 7♦ 6♦ | 7♦ 5♣ 3♦ 2♠ A♦ |
In the deal above, Chris wins the high-hand half of the pot with his J-high straight, and Bryan and Melodee split the low half (getting a quarter of the pot each) with 7-5-3-2-A.
Some specific things to notice about Omaha eight-or-better hands are:
Pot-limit Omaha (shortened to PLO) is popular in Europe, online, and in high-stakes "mixed games" played in some American casinos. It is more often played high only, but can also be played high-low. Even more so than Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, PLO is a game of drawing, if you are drawing, to the nut hand.[6] Second best flushes and straights can be, and frequently are, beaten. Furthermore, because of the exponential growth of the pot size in pot-limit play, seeing one of these hands to the end can be very expensive and carry immense reverse implied odds.
A great hand to have in PLO is the nuts with a redraw. For example, if the board is Q♠ J♠ 10♥, and you have A♠ K♣ Q♣ Q♥, then not only do you have the current nuts (your ace-king), but you also have a redraw with the two queens in your hand because if the board pairs, you will make queens full, or four queens. If your hand is A♠ K♠ Q♣ Q♥ , your hand is even better because you have flush and royal flush redraws as well. In fact, with the Q♠ J♠ 10♥ board, A♠ K♠ Q♣ Q♥ is approximately an 80-20 money favorite over a random hand containing ace-king (see freerolling). Even a pair of queens with any two spades is better than 55-45 against a random ace-king hand. Flopped nut straights, flushes and even sets can often be a double-edged sword in pot-limit Omaha.
Sometimes the high-low split game is played with a 9 or a 7 -high qualifier instead of 8-high. It can also be played with five cards dealt to each player instead of four. In that case, the same rules for making a hand apply: exactly two from the player's hand, and exactly three from the board.
In the game of "Courchevel", popular in Europe, instead of betting on the initial four cards and then flopping three community cards for the second round, the first community card is dealt before the first betting round, so that each player has four private cards and the single community card on his first bet. Then two more community cards are dealt, and play proceeds exactly as in Omaha.
Pot Limit Omaha high can also be played with more than four hole cards, the most common variety being six card Omaha which can be found in many casinos across the UK.
Omaha Hold'em gets its name from two types of games.
In the original Omaha poker game, players were only dealt two hole cards and had to use both to make a hand combined with community cards.[7] This version of Omaha is defined in the glossary of "Super System" (under Omaha) as being interchangeable with "Tight Holdem". Across all the variations of the game, the requirement of using exactly two hole cards is the only consistent rule. The "Omaha" part of the name represents this aspect of the game.
"Hold'em" refers to a game using community cards that are shared by all players. This is opposed to Draw games where each player only has hole cards, and Stud games where each player has their own visible cards.